Rumors (14 page)

W
HEN DIANA ENTERED HER FAMILY DRAWING ROOM
late on a Tuesday evening it was with a composed appearance her older sister might have strived for. She wore a simple black dress that circled in to display her small waist but disguised her other physical gifts, and her hair was more neatly in its place than it had been all evening. She carried herself with quiet dignity across the carpet to the unlit fireplace where her aunt Edith was waiting as though engaged in some kind of performance, and indeed it seemed to Diana that several layers of artifice would be required to disguise the emotions she felt within. Henry loved her again; her whole body was beating with it.

“Mr. Cairns,” she said, extending her hand but letting go of his grip before he could kiss it. Snowden Cairns had been her father’s occasional business partner and sometime fellow adventurer.
The poor man,
she thought. He was looking at her so earnestly, and she knew that her skin was lit up like some Hudson River sunset and that her pupils were dark and wide. “It’s been so long.”

“It has, a fact I regret. I hope you received the letters of condolence that I sent after your father’s passing? And news of your sister’s untimely end has recently reached me. You must accept my deepest apologies for not being here for either funeral…. I have been traveling, and there are times when returning to the eastern seaboard is too complicated even on the gravest occasions.”

Diana gestured for him to sit, and she herself moved backward into the faded bergère chair beside the one in which her aunt sat. Snowden went on saying kind things about her family, but she was having difficulty following every word. It wasn’t that Snowden didn’t seem earnest and well meaning, and though she had always thought of him, when she thought of him at all, as a friend of her father’s, he did not look nearly old enough to play the part. His nose was short and blocklike and his eyes, which shifted from green to brown, were set far apart under straight, thick brows. His face was not unhandsome, despite its appearance of having weathered a great deal of time out of doors. He had thick, preternaturally blond hair that rose back from his forehead on either side of a middle part, and he made a nice presentation of himself. But he was not Henry. He was only the reason that she was not with Henry now.

She had been reliving the sensations of that unexpected kiss when she noticed that her visitor was still standing. “How is your mother?” he asked, his tone gentle and considerate.

“She is very ill,” Diana replied, perhaps with more irritation than she had intended. She looked at her aunt for confirmation of this fact; Edith’s concerned eyes moved from Diana’s to Mr. Cairns and then she nodded gravely.

“Well, no wonder…” he answered, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “It’s freezing in here. I am surprised you are not taken ill yourself.”

“We…” Diana colored and paused. “We hadn’t been expecting anyone this late in the day.”

She saw Snowden looking at the empty brass rack where the firewood was usually stored. She wanted to tell him that she was taking care of it—that in fact a fire had been built in her mother’s room and the kitchen and even her own room that day, thanks to
her
ingenuity—but of course, that would only lead to questions about where the money had come from. And her trip to East Sixteenth Street was not something she could reveal. They had owed so much money to the wood company that her earnings really hadn’t gone very far, so it was true that Claire was rationing it and was probably waiting to see how long Snowden planned to stay before she wasted any of it on a fire so late in the evening.

“Miss Diana, if I may,” Snowden went on, moving toward her and crouching at her side. The proximity of his face did not make it any more attractive to her. “I have heard reports of your family’s misfortunes, and while I can scarcely
believe it, having been so closely allied with those fortunes in the past, I am here to help in any way I can. You need not be proud with me.”

Then he rose and moved swiftly to the bay windows that faced onto the street. He rapped on the pane, and Diana caught a glimpse of a private coach outside. A few minutes later Snowden’s valet was making a fire. Diana’s thoughts were too scattered, in that particular moment, to dwell on the peculiarity of Mr. Cairns’s traveling with firewood. The valet was dressed similarly to his employer, in workaday brown trousers and a waistcoat of worn black leather. Snowden’s shirt, however, was of slate gray silk, rather than thick, utilitarian cotton, and Diana could not help but note a gold bracelet at his cuff catching the light.

“There,” her guest declared when a full fire roared under the large, marble mantel. Diana was indeed warmed but the change in temperature did little to help her focus her thoughts away from their reinstated magnetic pole. “Obviously there are other things that are needed around the house, too—I will see to them. But just now, I must see your mother.”

Diana looked up from her folded hands mistily. “Oh?”

“It is of the utmost importance.”

“What is?”

“That I see your mother.”

“Oh!” Diana stood, a little startled by how far her thoughts
had strayed in the presence of a near stranger and her aunt. “Well…” she went on, more to pave an exit for herself than for any other reason.

“I don’t think Mrs. Holland is well enough for that,” Edith said, rearranging her aubergine silk sleeves against the chair’s padded armrests.

“I’ll go see if she’s well enough to see you,” Diana put in before Snowden could say anything more. Here was an opportunity to leave the room, and she intended to take it.

“Thank you.” Snowden made a little bowing motion.

Diana found her mother in the same position as when she had last seen her. She was in her bed, the curtains drawn down, her head resting on a pile of white pillows. But she had somehow contrived to get her hair into some semblance of purposeful arrangement and back under her widow’s cap. Her eyes were open.

“What is it, Diana?” she said without pretense of surprise. “It’s Mr. Cairns, Father’s friend. He’s downstairs and he wants to see you—” Diana was here interrupted by the sound of the door opening again. She turned with some impatience to see the man she had just been talking of, in all his rustic-gentleman trappings, coming into the room. For a man to see into a woman’s bedroom was such an assault to decorum that even Diana herself felt a touch scandalized.

“Mrs. Holland,” he began, “I cannot tell you how abjectly sorry I am for not having been able to extend my condolences for the passing of both your husband and daughter in person.”

“Thank you, Mr. Cairns. I read your letters, however, and I know your feelings.”

“Good. I hope you will not consider me overly forward in telling you that I have been hearing of your financial woes and I have come here to tell you that I do not believe any of it. If I may, Mrs. Holland, it is really not possible. I’d like to offer my services in this matter.” He paused and withdrew an envelope from inside his waistcoat. “I have brought you a check.”

Diana, who had been standing dutifully by her mother’s bedside, felt her temper flare at this. It really wasn’t necessary, she would have liked to have said, since a solution to all of their problems had very recently presented itself. And that solution was far handsomer than Snowden Trapp Cairns. She would have liked to dismiss his offer fast and sharp, but she found herself silenced again by the fact of her own indiscretions.

She was happy, however, to hear that her mother’s thoughts were not entirely divergent from her own. “We can’t accept your charity, Mr. Cairns, though it is very kind of you to come to us.”

“But it isn’t charity,” Mr. Cairns said seriously. “It is in
fact money that I have owed you for some time, and isn’t in truth so very great an amount. Your father’s percentage from a modestly successful claim we shared in the Klondike. So you see, if you don’t take it, you will be forcing me to be a thief.”

Diana found the smile that followed to be unbearably ingratiating.

“Mr. Cairns—” began Mrs. Holland, in a tone of unconvincing protest.

“I insist,” Snowden interrupted with finality.

“Thank you.” Mrs. Holland accepted the check with a touch of humility that, even in her diminished state, must have been difficult for her to affect. As she leaned over to place it on the night table a look of relief passed briefly across her face. “How long do you plan to be in town?”

“I am presently without duties elsewhere, and if you will allow me, Mrs. Holland, I would like to have a look at your papers. It is preposterous to me that you should be as bad off as they say….” Snowden paused, and his eyes flashed. “Or as you seem to believe you are.”

“That is very good of you, though I assure you I have been through the papers and the situation is quite dire. No matter—while you are in town you must stay with us.”

Snowden gave a quick bow, his boots closing in on each other at the heels.

“Thank you, Mrs. Holland. We will talk more tomorrow.
But for now I have disturbed you long enough. I will go down and find the maid. She will find a place for me where I will be of the least trouble.” He paused to take Diana’s hand, though he did not again attempt to kiss it. He held her gaze instead. “Good night, Miss Diana.”

“Good night,” Diana replied faintly. His exit from the room was a relief to her. It meant that very soon she would again be alone with her thoughts, which was the nearest she could get to again being close to Henry.

The door closed, and she felt her mother’s cold hand on her wrist.

“Di?” she said.

“Yes, Mother?’” Diana leaned against the bed and watched her mother relax back into her pillows.

“You’re tired now, dear, but tomorrow be a little good to Mr. Cairns, would you?”

Diana hardly knew what expression she made. She understood of course what her mother meant by being good. She wanted her to be to Mr. Cairns as she had not been to Mr. Coddington or Mr. Newburg or Mr. Cutting. But at that moment Diana couldn’t imagine any man but Henry ever holding her interest again.

T
HE ROCKING OF A TRAIN WAS EVIDENTLY SOMETHING
that calmed Will, for Elizabeth, lying in the crook of his arm, woke up to see that he was perfectly, angelically asleep. The remainders of the lunch they’d eaten early that day had been removed from the little table in front of their red velvet upholstered seat, and the view through the brass-framed window showed that darkness had almost completely fallen. Or was it the first light of dawn? The hour was either very late or very early, but in any event the porter had not disturbed them to make up their berth. She had slept so little the night before that it was natural she would have fallen so completely into dreaming on the train. Elizabeth closed her eyes and then opened them again.

She sat up suddenly and stood. Will shifted but did not wake up. Her shoulders were tight and her mouth was dry. Had they slept through the Oakland stop? If that was true, her chances to save her family were behind her—she knew, from Denny, where the pawnshops were there, but how would
she find such places in other cities? She didn’t know how long they would stay anywhere else. It seemed impossible that she would now be able to carry out her plan.

She moved down the train, looking for some friendly face, but all was quiet. As she reached the observation car, she saw through the glass that a well-dressed man was sitting there, smoking. She was so preoccupied that she went through the door and addressed the stranger with an abruptness that she would have termed rude in her previous life.

“Have we passed Oakland?” she said.

“Yes, some hours ago,” the man replied, turning. This answer distressed her so thoroughly that she did not recognize the man until he pronounced her name.

“Miss Elizabeth Holland,” Grayson Hayes repeated with emphasis.

She looked up into the man’s face and knew that she had not mistaken Penelope’s older brother. Though she hadn’t seen him in almost four years, his was a face she knew well. He had high, flat cheeks like his sister and a nose like an arrow pointing downward and a thin pencil moustache. His eyes were blue like his sister’s and were positioned just slightly too close together—for some reason that Elizabeth had never fully understood, this gave him a wily rather than clownish appearance.

Then she remembered that she was supposed to be dead.

He was looking at her as though he knew the whole catalogue of her secrets, but that might have just been an old Hayes intimidation technique. He had been abroad, after all, and had always had the family trait of self-absorption. He might have known anything about her or nothing at all. The only thing Elizabeth was sure of was that she disliked the way his eyes were on her.

He had hardened since she last saw him, which was at a small dance at the Hayeses’ old town house on Washington Square, where he had flattered her by asking her to dance—she had been very young then, and he had been the pick of the bachelors—but then he’d abandoned her midwaltz to dance with Isabelle De Ford. He was larger now, no longer someone you could describe as a boy. He wore his hair in a way that reminded her of Henry. It was the way they all wore their hair, those boys who cast proprietary glances at the whole world.

“You must have me confused,” she said coldly.

Then she turned and ran back through the cars until she reached Will. Grayson Hayes did not follow her, although she kept looking back to be sure, and when she reached her own compartment she shook Will awake. He opened his eyes slowly, lazily, and when he made her out he smiled. A few seconds passed and then he asked her what was wrong.

“We have to get off this train.” Her voice trembled, and she knew that if she did not manage a deep breath soon, she might collapse. Will must have realized her state of agitation, because the happiness went out of his face. “We have to get off as soon as we can.”